First, I would like to say that I do agree with your Six Reasons People Fail to Achieve Their Goals. I know there are other reasons, but the six you have listed are definitely relavant.
The first one dealing with not reaching goals because they are unrealistic is true for many people. Individuals need to look at their present state in life, their health, their personal resources, their time that can be invested, their financial resources and their willingness to sacrifice and work toward a goal. The goal has to be realistic for them. I believe we should always reach up in setting goals, but at the same time we must be realistic because if we set goals that we have no chance of achieving we will quickly become discouraged.
Number two has to do with focus. That is something that comes easier for some people, but something we must all work on to achieve. We must prepare ourselves to be focused. We must keep ourselves mentally and physically sound and must organize our time, limit distractions and schedule a time and place to do the things we need to do. We also need to practice breaking things down into small segments, setting timelines for each segment to be accomplished and making sure we do not procrastinate.
Lacking motivation definitely affects our accomplishing our goals. We have to have clearly define our goals and keep focused on achieving our long term goals. We do this by setting short term goals that are related to our long term goals, providing the steps along the way, and rewarding ourselves when we accomplish our short term goals. We also have to keep the big picture in mind and involve our families and close friends in supporting us and helping us achieve our short and long term goals. We definitly need a support group as well as the willingness to make sacrifices along the way.
As we set goals we need to be careful to first think about what is really important to us in our lives, what really matters to us and how we want to be remembered. Next, we need to keep focused on that. If life's circumstances bring changes, like losing a spouse or losing a job or having a new opportunity open up, we may need to rethink our long and short term goals and make adjustments along the way.
In setting goals we must make sure they are very specific, and that we set timelines for achieving them that are realistic. We also need to focus on what is really important and not set too many goals and try to do too many different things. Our goals should also support each other and not bring about conflicts.
To acheive goals, we must have a plan or a road map or we will not achieve the goals. The plan has to include where we want to be in five years or ten years or twenty years and the steps to be achieved today, this week, this month and this year that support our long term goals. We must look at how we spend our time and make sure that time is alloted to reaching our goals, and that our goals reflect the things that are really important to us in our lives.
